Post-Standard Achievement Awards: Sister Dolores Bush and Sister James Peter Ridgeo serve the North Side

Sister Dolores Bush and Sister James Peter Ridgeo2009 Post-Standard Achievement Award honorees helped establish the Franciscan Northside Ministries, which provides free medical and legal clinics; free food and meals; programs for children during school breaks; and faith-based gatherings and celebrations.

Sister Dolores Bush and Sister James Peter Ridgeo were on retreat March 8 when they got a phone call alerting them that a sewer line break had flooded the medical clinic they run in Syracuse.

The Franciscan nuns abandoned their time of reflection to assess the damage and coordinate repairs at the Poverello Health Center run by Franciscan Northside Ministries on North Salina Street in Syracuse.

"They both went in immediately. They were concerned about the people who might not get the services they needed," said Grace Anne Dillenschneider, co-director of Franciscan Collaborative Ministries which oversees Northside Ministries and other projects, including the Assumption Food Pantry, also damaged by the sewer problem.

The Franciscan sisters, known as Dolly and J.P., will receive Post-Standard People of Achievement awards for their work with the medical clinic, a legal assistance clinic, and weekly social gatherings and Scripture discussions on Syracuse's North Side.

John Berry / The Post-StandardSister Dolores Bush (left) and Sister J.P. Ridgeo, both Syracuse, prepare Kevin Arroway for a medical examination at Poverello Health Center on Salina Street. The sisters helped establish Franciscan Northside Ministries, which provides free medical and legal clinics; free food and meals; programs for children during school breaks; and faith-based gatherings.

The programs are part of the Franciscan Collaborative Ministries, which since 1997 has linked Franciscan sisters, brothers and fathers in numerous pro- jects that focus on revitalizing the North Side.

In 2007, Syracuse University honored the clinic with an Unsung Heroes Award. In October, Sisters Bush and Ridgeo were inducted into the Northside Walk of Honor.

The clinic and food pantry resumed operations about two weeks after the sewer break, the sisters said Thursday.

The two estimate the clinic treated more than 2,700 people in 2008.

When the clinic opened in 2000, it took several weeks before clients stopped in.

"There's a trust factor," said Sister Ridgeo, a registered nurse. "They didn't know what we were about. To them, 'medical' meant cost. With us, it's free."

The clients are working poor and homeless people, they said.

"It seems like lately they (the clients) are the result of being downsized," Sister Bush said.

The two offer services with an emphasis on the model of St. Francis, who taught that the poor are to be treated with dignity and respect.

That's part of what makes them so successful, Sister Dillenschneider said.

"Both of them keep a very positive attitude that is picked up by the people they work with," she said. "That lends a certain air of calm to the people who come to receive the services."

Their calm, combined with a lively sense of humor, are crucial for the work, she said. "They didn't let the sewer problem keep them down for long."

Sisters Ridgeo and Bush were full of jokes they frequently dropped the "P" word about the actual substance the sewer backup brought into the clinic.

But they are serious about the work they do, which they say is needed because of a broken health care system.

"If they ever get health care for everyone, that would be the best thing," Sister Ridgeo said. "We'd be out of a job."